NAM is the official provider of online scientific reporting for the
8th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment
and Prevention (IAS 2015), which will take place in Vancouver, Canada,
19th-22nd July 2015.

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Search through all our worldwide HIV and AIDS news and features, using the topics below to filter your results by subjects including HIV treatment, transmission and prevention, and hepatitis and TB co-infections.

Researchers at major clinical centres in the U.S. have collaborated to study potential causes of peripheral neuropathy (PN) among HIV-positive people in the modern era. They recruited about 500 people who were free from PN and monitored them for an average of two years, performing extensive assessments. Taking into account many issues, statistical analysis found that there were several factors associated with an increased risk for PN.

HIV can genetically evolve and independently replicate in patients' brains early in the illness process, an analysis of cerebral spinal fluid has found. Prompt diagnosis and treatment with antiretroviral therapy should reduce the risk that the virus could find refuge and cause damage in the brain, where some medications are less effective -- potentially enabling it to re-emerge, even after it is suppressed in the periphery, say researchers.

New findings, published today by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, open the door to the development of new therapies to block or decrease cognitive decline due to HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders, estimated to affect 10 to 50 percent of aging HIV sufferers to some degree.

New findings, published today by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, open the door to the development of new therapies to block or decrease cognitive decline due to HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders, estimated to affect 10 to 50 percent of aging HIV sufferers to some degree.

As many as 50% of those on combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) suffer from mild to moderate cognitive dysfunction. Antiretroviral medications themselves may be partly to blame for such neurocognitive problems, suggests a recent review of previous studies. But the authors of this review do not recommend that antiretroviral treatment be stopped.

A new study has found that low- and high-frequency hearing is poorer in adults with the human immunodeficiency virus, compared with adults who do not have the disease. Although unexpected, similar hearing loss has previously been observed to be more likely in adults with diabetes mellitus. "It is possible that both HIV infection and diabetes, being systemic diseases, could affect the neural function of the cochlea," the authors suggest.

“Hepatitis C infection has serious long-term side effects, such as damage to the liver, but our research indicates that it does not affect the brain,” said lead author David Clifford, MD, of Washington University.

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